Alienware 18, now with Maxwell GPUs (Officially) and a new BIOS

I see that Dell's home page in Norway have only listed AW15 as a special offer. Sweden has listed only AW13 and 15. The same Denmark. The entire northern Scandinavia has high purchasing power so I assume that something is going to happen soon.

 

Still sitting in pre-production...

 

Same here. When is your estimated delivery date? Mine's 6th.

 

6th of October ?

 

Yup!

 

my birthday! do i get one as well?

 

31st

 

OF OCTOBER????

 

It's really nice to have this as a system exchange option, but it really is too little/too late for people shopping for a new machine. With Eurocom on the virge of releasing new X Extreme 15" and 17" models with configuration options including socked desktop 6700K CPU and 990M and 990M SLI with dual 330W AC adapter options, a minor component "refresh" for an EOL flagship product isn't going to cut it. If they want to be taken seriously, a minimum requirement is going back to the drawing board and showing their commitment to us by releasing a new product that can outperform the baddest dual GPU/desktop CPU Clevo, and doesn't employ anything with BGA or firmware write-protection.

 

Wishful thinking my friend. We won't be getting it from Alienware, not as long as it is under Dell's bean counters.

 

Nah, I'm over it and moving on to bigger and better things... literally. Not wishful thinking as much as a statement of obvious fact. If they don't do it, then they don't care about being taken seriously by people like me.

 

Eurocom has become crazy... Bga in an AW18. LOL

Maybe this is the future we see... if Dell relaunch AW18? Maybe in a much thinner design? Only with a newer BGA processor .

 

Yeah, and their m17x R4 page says the i7-2960XM is a 3rd Gen processor.
And I don't remember the m18xR1 supporting Ivy-Bridge CPUs. Or the m15x supporting 2nd gen processors.
Really starting to wonder if they are double-checking their facts on their products and upgrades.

 

Those are all typographical errors.

Well, so much for the trolls flaming Alienware about their erroneous information concerning a desktop CPU coming out in the AW18. Those examples from Eurocom are equally inaccurate.

If there is one thing I have learned growing up, incompetence has no boundaries. There are examples of human error, inexperience, lack of knowledge and outright incompetence in every profession. This problem is further exacerbated by human resource departments and recruiters that are focusing on less important things such political correctness (equal opportunity), "growth potential," meaningless college degrees and "soft skills" more so than heavy reliance on technical skill, hands-on knowledge and experience where these latter attributes are the most important ingredients for success.

When I have questions or need help with a situation, I would much rather put up with a highly skilled and knowledgeable expert that acts like a jerk and lacks social finesse than working a nice person that is about as dumb as a box of rocks.

 

september

 

Come on guys! I need that 970M Dell vBIOS to (possibly) get my 970M working with this aging M17x R2.
I mean the 970M is compatible, just doesn't play nice with the RGB LED screen.

 

I don't think the vBIOS is going to help you. Might be an architecture thing where it is unable to drive 30pin LVDS

 

omg... blacky upgraded to a "new" machine?!?!?! holy crap, when did that happen? arent ur eyes bleeding every time u look at that blasphemous 16:9 display on the alienware?

edit: oh wait, it DOES actually have a 16:10 display! aaaah, now it makes sense again, all is well and the world continues to spin, haha

 

One has to hope and try. Otherwise I need to downgrade to a 880M ...

I have my M17x R2 for more than a year now. I gave my old Clevo to my parents, it is still working but I had to perform a complete makeover on it since it's chassis literally started to fall apart. At some point I was holding the screen attached to the chassis with wires - and yes, it was still working!

 

Where signed nvidia mobile drivers with official maxwell and AW18R1 chassis support?

 

I was under the impression the 18 only came with 3 heat pipes. Had I known earlier would have gone for the 980M instead of 970M.

 

Same as Aw17

 

It shouldn't matter but that turned me off big time.

 

My order was cancelled

 

Woahh any explanation from Dell? I hope they haven't charged your card yet or anything...

 

No, didn't even bother to ask. I just cancelled it all.

I'm going to wait and see what else other companies offer.

 

Just don't surrender to the BGA crapbook disease and something with a nice desktop CPU, dual graphics and dual AC adapters will be available from Clevo.

 

Keep an eye out on Dell's Support Page. It's week 3. They just released a new BIOS for the 15 R1 and 17 R2, so it can be possible that it'll release later this week.
If it doesn't show up by by the end of the week (Friday), I'll ask again when it'll be released.

 

Well I won't be able to experience the new bios, just sold my 18...

Someone be sure to post plenty of pics

 

Anyone got hold of the next bios version for the 18 yet? Was meant to be out this week some time.

 

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but Dell Australia isn't doing the Alienware 18 models, is there a reseller in Australia that is ? If not any info on what my best import options would be ?

 

So there are two version of 980m GTX. The 4GB version for AW 17 and 8GB version for AW 18 (Total 16GB in SLI) ? I just noticed this.

 

Alienware 17 and below is soldered to the board, and that uses, in my opinion, a crappy version of the 980M. The Alienware 18 uses the king of the hill 8GB MXM 3.0b 980M, which is the fastest mobile graphics card to date, and most likely won't be surpassed until Pascal.

 

So the new AW 17 has soldered GPU , but the AW 17 R1 is not. Is that correct ?

 

Correct the 2015 Alienware 17 models have solder gpus. The 2013 and 2014 model 17s aka the 17r1 have a mxm gpu just like the Alienware 18


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Any word on any new bios. From what I remember it was supposed to be released this week. The 18s will probably start shipping soon


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I'll ask again.
In other news, the 18 in the US can now be configured with a sole GTX 970m... with 3 GB of VRAM and 8 GB of DDR3L RAM (4x2). I'll have to ask about these too. The other GPU options still have the 6 GB and 8 GB VRAM (per card). The starting price has dropped to $2099 because of the new options.
The first listing is also called Viking.
EDIT: All GTX 970m options are now 6 GB for the 18.

 

I'm hoping that next year , Alienware won't go the " soldered " route of their CPUs and GPUs in their high end laptops.

 

Probably not going to happen. Intel is going full BGA on all mobile CPUs.

 

...and will be a total role model for nvidia going soldered as well once green HBM gpus hit the market. just not "worth bothering" upgrading mxm specs for that, no milking potential!

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Yup, the time is drawing short to do the right thing. There are few acceptable options left. We need to bankrupt the gaming laptop vendors that ship BGA crap or forever hold our peace about the even more pathetic feces tomorrow will bring. If I cannot buy a high performance machine with sockets and slots, I will buy nothing. Anyone committed to long-term excellence is going to be doing the same thing. Otherwise, they are contributing to the success of this wicked crap and will be partially responsible for the consequence it will bring. Unfortunately, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The lack of principle of some will adversely affect us all.

 

Sort of it. As a producer, once the CPU is soldered, you loose the flexibility of really configurating your machine/motherboard. So it makes sense to solder the GPU as well. You will just offer 4-5 model options and that's it.

 

Yeah, then also solder RAM (like Apple), remove the screws, glue the whole thing together and milk the cow even more through official service centers...

Slim, silent, expensive and as powerful as a 'real system' from 3 years ago.

 

Exactly! Wrong is wrong, whether it's a little bit or a lot.

 

Is there anything you can actually milk? I mean, soldering and resoldering is not without its risks and will increase service costs.

 

im guessing: warranties covering labour only, with parts having to pay a hefty premium for. so at the service center itll be like: ah, another RMA! *throws the machine into the trash and packs up a new one* yup, done, another happy customer! so...who wants lunch?

 

Well, the user would also have to send it in and pay to change things like ssd, battery or well, reset the BIOS...

 

Yeah... it was a dark day when laptop screens went from 16:10 to 16:9, now they are soldering everything.

Anyway, anyone got an Alienware 18 with 970M shipped to them ? I really need that vBIOS dump.

 

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Has anyone ordered one of these "new" 18's? I'd be curious to hear about it.

I'm actually more curious as to what will be replacing 4th gen. Haswell. Devil's Canyon? Skylake? It should show on your order summary.